i have seen the frame at our spring tech session this year. brian pearce is a member of our club and brought one to show all of us what it looks like up close. it is an awesome piece of art but who really looks at the weld marks on any frame on any car. last year i saw the SS trailing arms and lower control arms and they were mighty impressive. enjoy the frame mark Walter Coe wrote: > Being the loud-mouthed sort of guy, I'll tell you all about it. We > unloaded > it from the delivery truck and moved it to a pickup truck. The frame > is > narrow enough that it fit in the back just fine. All the extra bits > were > packed beneath a piece of plywood where the fuel tank belongs. I > could tell > by looking at the front of the frame while it was still on the > delivery > truck that the driver's side of the crumple tube was a speck higher > than the > other side. Once we got it out I could tell that someone either > dropped it > on that part or maybe had most of the weight of the frame balanced on > the > nose while hoisting it into the truck. The damage is limited only to > the > crumple zone which on this frame simply unbolts. So straightening it > will > be easy. > > What the frame looks like: It looks just like the one we saw at the > Memphis > show only without suspension pieces on it. If you weren't at Memphis, > check > out the photos posted at: > http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/DMCForum/lst and then click the > folder > "Memphis 2002" and then "Pearce". > > The engineering looks excellent, but the welds holding it all together > could > look better. I'm not going to badmouth the work. The opinions I > heard at > Memphis were varied from, "It isn't safe" to "It doesn't need to be > pretty, > and it won't be visible anyway." I'm going to take it to a stainless > steel > fabrication shop that I've done business with before and have them go > over > it. There are areas I want to polish such as what is visible in the > engine > compartment and maybe even all of it if it isn't too much of a hassle. > > I was disappointed to see that they used American threads on > everything. I > would rather see them use metric like was done at the factory. > > The front lower control arms look excellent! Whoever welded those is > qualified to make jewelry. For the price, they are going to give the > other > aftermarket ones a run for their money. > > This frame also has the stainless steel trailing arms that do away > with > trailing arm bolts. To make toe-in adjustments to the rear wheels, > you move > spacers from one side of the joint to the other. This is incredibly > superior to the OEM way of doing it. My only concern is that the > plastic? > spacers (washers) they used are rather thick. I haven't measured > anything > yet, but it looks like one of these spacers is about twice as thick or > more > as an OEM alignment shim. Unless the frame is made dead on the money, > I > would expect to need to find some thinner alignment washers for fine > adjustment. I feel this way because when I had my car at Sears for a > 4 > wheel alignment, they said that the OEM spacers were too thick and > instructed me on how to make thinner ones at home which I later > installed. > If my new frame is like the others that PDC makes, it won't need any > adjustment (according to them). > > I can't find the receipts off hand, but so far I have around $10K > spent on > the basic frame, all the options and having it delivered. I will > probably > spend a few grand more installing it. I want to repaint all the parts > that > are being reused, replace the refrigerant lines with R-134a barrier > hoses, > maybe replace the hard brake & fuel lines with SS, etc. But for now I > have > too many other projects in the works that I need to finish first. > Then I > need to find a lift that can take the body off the old frame. I'm > considering making a set of trusses out of wood supported by 4 bottle > jacks. > I'll know if I can make that work once I've done the math. Maybe I'll > just > get one of those in-home lifts that you can park a second car under. > > Walt > > > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: > DMCForum-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > > > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Home Selling? Try Us! http://us.click.yahoo.com/QrPZMC/iTmEAA/jd3IAA/HliolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: DMCForum-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
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